Assabet River NWR Final CCP - U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Eastern Massachusetts National Wildlife Refuge Complex Draft CCP/EA November 26, 2003
Introduction
The contracted U.S. Forest Service Content Analysis Team report summarizes public
comment submitted on the Draft Comprehensive Conservation Plan and Environmental
Assessment (hereafter Draft CCP/EA) prepared to describe the alternatives for the Assabet
River, Great Meadows, and Oxbow refuges in the Eastern Massachusetts National Wildlife
Refuge Complex. This report provides a narrative review of concerns raised as well as
appendices detailing the coding process for reviewing public comments, analyzing
demographic information derived from responses, and listing individuals responsible for the
analysis. The narrative summary provides an overview of pervasive themes in public
sentiment rather than a comprehensive description of each public concern.
Public input on the Draft CCP/EA is documented, analyzed, and summarized using a process
called content analysis. This is a systematic method of compiling and categorizing the full
range of public viewpoints and concerns regarding a plan or project. This process makes no
attempt to treat comments as votes. In no way does content analysis attempt to sway decision
makers toward the will of any majority. Content analysis ensures that every comment is
considered at some point in the decision process. Content analysis is intended to facilitate
good decision-making by helping the planning team to clarify, adjust, or incorporate
technical information into the final guidelines. The process facilitates agency response to
comment.
All responses (i.e., letters, emails, faxes, oral testimony, and other types of input) are
included in this analysis. In the content analysis process, each response is given a unique
identifying number, which allows analysts to link specific comments to original letters.
Respondents’ names and addresses are then entered into a project-specific database program,
enabling creation of a complete mailing list of all respondents. The database is also used to
track pertinent demographic information such as responses from special interest groups or
federal, state, tribal, county, and local governments.
All input is considered and reviewed by an analyst. Comments are then entered into the
database. In preparing the final summary analysis, public statements are reviewed again
using database printouts. These reports track all coded input and allow analysts to identify a
wide range of public concerns and analyze the relationships between them in a narrative
summary.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service solicited comments on the Draft CCP/EA from July 20,
2003 to September 3, 2003.
During the comment period, 1,907 responses, oral and written, were received. Twenty-five
responses were duplicates; therefore 1882 responses were entered into the comment database.
Organized response campaigns (forms) represented 70 percent (1,334 of 1,907) of the total
responses.
Introduction 1